Is there a deeper meaning to your doodle?

Sam Silvey

Let’s be honest with each other, we all doodle. (Yes, even drawing a circle over and over again on a piece of paper in a meeting is an act of ‘doodling’).

Often-times, doodles originate out of sheer boredom. We may be in a slow meeting, trying to recalculate our day, or trying to remember what we have forgotten. What if your doodle had a deeper meaning?

Doodling is actually a very helpful way to let a stream of consciousness flow, it’s kind of like unplugging a drain in your bath tub, allowing all of the stored up thoughts and ideas spill from your pen onto the paper. From geometric shapes inferring inherent and established order in your thinking to small scribbles in a pattern can hint towards an inner desire for structure, all parts of your doodle could mean a little more than you think.

When you get the chance, save a doodle or two that you may have done during a meeting or conversation with a coworker and go back and evaluate the sketch. What did it hint towards how you were feeling? Was it accurate? Who knows!

We all know physical expressions can tell emotions, but what if your little doodles told you just as much about yourself, if not more, than that Facebook status you just posted?